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THE 


WORLDS REVOLUTION, 


BY 


ROBERT T. MIDDLEDITCH. 


“These that have turned the world upside down.”—<Acts xvii. 7, 


A Prise Eract on MAissfons. 


CHARLESTON: 
SOUTHERN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 
1853. 





Colorly’s Revolution. 


A FEW years since an individual, in declining to 
subscribe to a missionary fund, said, “‘I dont like your 
Christian missions. They make religion a transaction 
of bustle. They give it something of a revolutionary 
character.” His censure was a compliment more val- 
uable than any donation grudgingly bestowed could 
have been. Modern evangelization, having this revo- 
lutionary feature, is, in one respect at least, proved 
identical with primitive efforts. They who feared the 
results of the Apostles’ labors described them as men 
who had “turned the world upside down.” 

THE WORLD IS TO BE REVOLUTIONIZED. The assur- 
ance of this we have in the irrevocable promises of 
that Being who controls all worlds. His language to 
the Son is, ‘‘ Ask of me, and I shall give thee the hea- 
then for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of 
the earth for thy possession.””? ‘‘ The kingdoms of this 
world” are to “become the kingdoms of our God and 
of his Christ.”’? These sure words of prophecy cheered 
the heart of many a good soldier of Jesus Christ before 


4. THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


his translation to the great cloud of witnesses. Even 
here he learned the words of the anthem which shall 
celebrate the universal empire of his Lord, and now, 
no uninterested on-looker, he waits for the glorious era 
when, “as the voice of many waters,” all holy intelli- 
gences shall unite in the grand chorus, ‘“ Alleluia, for 
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth !” 

Christians, as well as other men, ery, ‘ Revolution.” 
But while others have in view the elevation of the in- 
habitants of a few small states, they contemplate the 
world as the only boundary of its application. They 
watch with intense interest the efforts of those who 
struggle toupheave the mountains of despotism. Their 
hearts are gladdened when mighty tyrannies are torn 
from their strong-holds. But they can not regard such 
achievements as consummations. The philanthropy 
which forgets that we are more than creatures of me, 
may deem its object gained by the fall of thrones and 
the establishment of new principles of government. It 
seeks not such results as that which is born from above. 
Its aim is to secure the well-being of man for this life, 
the other contemplates his interests as the heir of 
immortality. The one would enfranchise him with 
exalted national privileges, but the other, aware that 
in these he can not ‘* continue by reason of death,” 
seeks that he may be ‘ blessed with all spiritual bless- 
ings,” and directs him to a “better country”’ which God 
has established forever. 

The revolution Christians cantemplate, being thus 
different from that which others seek, altogether differ- 
ent means are required for its accomplishment. Per- 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 5 


suasive instrumentalities alone can be employed with 
effect, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” 
Those engaged in its prosecution need to go forth, 
“ With unction from the Holy Ghost supplied 
To war with error, ignorance, and sin; 


To exalt humility, to humble pride, 
To still the passion’s stormy strife within.” 


Curses and imprecations dwell in the hearts of those 
who are subdued in conquests obtained by the sword, 
They who are made submissive by ‘the truth as in 
Jesus,” are filled with gratitude and rejoicing. Men 
who triumph in contests prompted by worldly ambition 
‘make a solitude and call it peace,” but far different 
are the results of the victories of the Christian war- 
fare. ‘The wilderness and the solitary place shall be 
glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom 
as the rose,” 

THE WORLD NEEDS THIS REVOLUTION. To the 
Divine mind our world presents a vast panorama of 
wickedness, ‘The Lord looked down from heaven 
upon the children of men, to see if there were any that 
did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, 
they are altogether become filthy; there is none that 
doeth good, no, not one,” The correctness of this 
world’s exhibition we can not question. The conscious- 
ness of man’s fall rests on us everywhere, With all 
the wonderful manifestations of his genius and skill, 
we are nevertheless daily reminded that there is some- 
thing wrong in his moral machinery. With all his 
advances in philosophy, science, and art, we can not lose 
the conviction that his mind is “foolish” and “dark. 


= 


6 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION, 


ened.’”? ‘‘Though we had never read it in the Bible, 
we think we could read it in the world, that man is no 
longer what a Holy Creator made him.” 

As a consequence of sin, degradation and misery 
overspread the world. ‘Darkness covers the earth and 
gross darkness the people.” ‘The Gentiles walk in 
the vanity of their mind, having the understanding 
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through 
the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness 
of their heart, and, being past feeling, have given them- 
selves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness 
with greediness.” ‘The dark places of the earth are 
full of the habitations of cruelty.” The reverse of 
this representation can be affirmed of only a very lim- 
ited portion of the earth’s population, Others have 
made some advance; but they are yet so involved in 
ignorance and superstition, that they present only a 
slight improvement from that brutality of manners and 
viciousness in morals which hold uncontested empire 
whereyer barbarism exists. The great majority of 
men to this very hour present a living counterpart of 
the worst forms of degradation, misery, and cruelty 
portrayed in the volume of inspiration. Could we 
“take the tides from our waters and leave them stag- 
nant, and the stars from our heavens, and leave them 
in sackeloth, and the verdure from our valleys and leave 
them in barrenness,’’ we could have but a feeble im- 
pression of the mental and moral condition of hundreds 
of millions of our race. We can not know the contract- 
edness of soul there must be when a litile image is 
believed invested with almighty power. Who can un- 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. v4 


derstand the miserable un-rest of the Hindoo with mil- 
lions of deities to propitiate, or the debasement of the 
Chinese worshiping their fathers, and expecting their 
children will worship them? Who, we may ask, can 
tell us how gross is that darkness which prevails over 
Africa, when at the death of a prince, or a chief, slaves 
are murdered in large numbers to form a cortege for 
his spirit to the unknown world? Who can describe 
the burning anxiety of men, when, to gain acceptance 
with their gods, they inflict on themselves excruciating 
torments, and even rush into death, fraught with the 
most intense agony? Can any one portray to us that. 
society where human sacrifices are offered? In some 
parts of the world these arecommon, While the read- 
er’s eye is traversing these pages, there is reason to 
believe that many are gloating themselves with the 
sufferings of terrified human victims. Apart from 
Gospel influences, men are everywhere debased, igno- 
rant, and miserable. 
“ The slaves to hate, revenge, and lust, 
Fiends to their neighbors, to themselves unjust.” 

They exist, but they have no true guidance for life; 
and they die, but death opens no portal of peace. They 
are immortal, but to them eternity is an unknown pre- 
cipice. Tho present life nas no blessings, and the future 
is ‘‘ without form and void.” In their condition all 
horrors concentrate, for they are ‘‘ without God, and 
having no hope” in the world. 

Can any desire more proof of the necessity of this 
revolution ? 

THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION Is HOPEFUL, Christians 


8 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


throughout the world, expect the Gospel of Christ to 
obtain universal empire. Nowhere has this belief 
become more thoroughly impressed on Christian char- 
acter than in the United States. In this hope there is 
an element of success ; for nothing tends so much to 
make us earnest, courageous, and patient in any cause, 
as the belief of ultimate victory. 

Investigation will teach us that man, left to himself, 
is everywhere debased and sensual, and that only where 
the religion of Jesus is received and prized, is there 
any change for the better in his opinions, habits, and 
hopes, So, also, we may learn that where the Gospel 
is possessed in its scriptural integrity, the best evidence 
is given of its power to elevate and bless the human 
family, For this reason we regard it as the means of 
a world’s revolution, 

The population of the globe is variously estimated 
from seven hundred and fifty, to one thousand of mil- 
lions. If we make nine hundred and fifty millions the 
basis of calculation, we may conclude, that with the 
exception of a small fraction of adherents to the Jewish 
faith, three fourths of the population of the world are 
wedded to Paganism and Moharmmedanism. One fourth 
only of the dwellers of earth bear the name of Chris- 
tians, Two thirds of these are fettered by the decep- 
tions and puerilities of the Romish and Greek churches, 
while a large proportion of the rest are beguiled by 
philosophy, falsely so called, or immersed in ecareless- 
ness concerning their immortal interests. 

To effect our purpose, the ponderous superstitions of 
heathenism, the monstrous deceptions of Anti-Christ, 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 9 


and the miserable subterfuges of infidelity and practical 
unbelief, must be overcome. All this we believe the 
religion of Jesus can accomplish. 

Those who expect religion to change the character of 
the nations, proceed on principles which accord with the 
human constitution. ‘‘ Man,” remarks Burke, “is, by 
his nature and constitution, a religious animal. Atheism 
is against not only our reason but our instincts.” 

In our own land we behold, on every hand, edifices 
for worship according to the Christian’s faith. If we fly 
to the uttermost parts of the earth, we find provision 
made for devotion. As the traveler passes over the con- 
tinent of Europe, the Cross meets him everywhere. One 
of the first objects which attracts his attention on the 
shores of India is an idol’s temple. In China the lofty 
pagoda rears itself above every other structure. The 
pointed minaret and swelling cupola unfolds to his 
view as he approaches a Mohammedan city; and the 
Fetish erections and sacred groves of Africa, all attest 
that religion is natural toman. It is by acting on this 
religious sentiment, we expect a revolution to be 
wrought which shall elevate and bless all people. 

Are we in error when we express the belief that the 
Gospel of Jesus is the instrumentality to remedy human 
woes? Every other religious faith is incompetent for 
good. Idolatry has had the widest range, and it has 
proved a curse everywhere. It has nothing to satisfy 
the cravings of the true human soul. It teaches ‘* gods 
many’ and “lords many,” but none of these can in- 
spire a love for principles which ennoble our nature. 
It prescribes a thousand performances, but accomplishes 


10 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


no reformation. Mohammedanism presents to its vo- 
taries the prospect of a future world of sensual grati- 
fication, and therefore can not purify them in this. It 
has no satisfying revelation, no sanctifying power, and 
no true peace. Judaism was intended for only one 
people, who, living generally in a small territory, should 
be able to come to one center of worship. It is now a 
thing of the past. Its author has pronounced it abro- 
gated. It only lingers in the world as an empty form. 
The principles and practices of men professing Infidelity 
give us no reason to believe that it has any antidotes 
to the woes of humanity. Affecting to be something 
new and grand, it is continually raising its banner, rich 
in the embroidery of promise, to flaunt the unwary to 
disappointment and death. What could infidelity ac- 
complish where heathenism exists? The ignorance of 
the heathen might almost realize the idea of that elys- 
ium for which it sighs. Religious faith there presents 
no restraints with which it could war. It effects no 
moral improvement to awaken hatred, and the hope it 
affords beyond death is too miserable to invite robbery. 

Christianity has a benevolent aggressiveness. The 
Mohammedan seeks to gain the submission of men to 
his faith, but his motive is enlargement of empire. A 
Jew does not strive for proselytes. An idolater is not 
concerned to obtain converts. Romanists seek to ex- 
tend their faith, but it is that they may count more 
subjects to the Papal see. Only the purer forms of 
Christianity seek after man from exclusive regard to 
his well-being. 

The Gospel is adapted to secure man’s present good. 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. Il 


It subserves in the highest degree the interests of 
nations and individuals. The American States are in- 
_ debted to Christianity for their grand and much-coveted 
position. Itinfused that love-of freedom which anima- 
ted and gave strength to those who fought the battles 
of liberty. It seals and keeps fast the tomb of despot- 
ism. The capacity to appreciate and enjoy our civil 
privileges is one of its blessed benefactions. Our 
testimony to its beneficence is not solitary. All nations 
where Christianity has influence have a superiority 
which none can question, and which no other agency 
has ever produced. We may, then, fearlessly affirm 
that it is the only lever which can elevate the nations 
of heathenism to the dignity of civilization, or raise 
the masses of so-called Christendom to true liberty. 
There is a reason for this. ‘The heart of man is not 
right with God, nor is it right with his fellows, and 
every ameliorating scheme which overlooks this two- 
fold depravity is sure to end in frustration.” The Gos- 
pel reaches the springs of human disorder. It gives all 
who receive it “‘a new and holy vitality—the highest 
kind of life—the life of God in the soul of man—a Di- 
vine spark, which, though now but as the smoking flax, 
shall, when all that hinders its ignition is removed, burst 
into a pure bright flame, trembling, yet rising in contin- 
ual aspirations to its Eternal Source.’’* 

The Gospel serves man’s eternal well-being. Ii alone 
opens the way of peace to the soul. It unfolds the at- 
tributes and perfections of God. It develops our im- 
mortality. It makes known our depravity and misery, 

* J, A, James. 


12 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


and the wonderful scheme Divine Love has devised 
and provided for our restoration. Its disclosures of the 
unseen world lift up the heart with gladness. One 
fact concerning the Lord Jesus expresses its whole 
design: He “ appeared to put away sin, by the sacrifice 
of himself.” Its grand requirement is presented in one 
word—BELIEVE. [tsgreat glory is this: that man every- 
where may be the subject of its blessings, and finding 
him any where, it makes a tender of justification, sanc- 
tification, and eternal life, if he will give the Crucified 
One his confidence. It carries to all men alike the 
proofs of adaptation. It comes in contact with some in 
the early days of life, and they pass through life under 
its guidance. By others its importance has only been 
realized as they approached the incarceration of the 
grave, yet it afforded them “immortal hopes in dying 
moments.”? As a mirror, it presents to view our real 
state, and by its accurate revelations shows its ability 
to relieve our difficulties. ‘‘By its universal adaptation 
to the universal state and character of humanity, it is 
fitted to establish its own moral supremacy in every 
territory where man is found.” 

Thus adapted for universal prevalence, Christianity 
seeks to accomplish its purpose in the most feasible 
manner. It addresses itself to individuals, and seeks to 
create in them a new spiritual life. Thus, as successive 
persons are born from above, nations are to be revolu- 
tionized. It is as one and another submit themselves 
to Christ, God works the fulfillment of prophecy, that 
‘Call nations shall serve him.” 

The power of the Gospel to accomplish its end in men 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 18 


of all classes and conditions, has been abundantly dem- 
onstrated. It has formed and fashioned the character 
of the vilest into moral beauty. Among the subjects of — 
its power have been barbarians accustomed to orgies of 
human blood, and ethers favored with all the mental 
culture and refinement of a far-advanced civilization ; 
“ philosophers who could traverse the region of the stars, 
and peasants who could but imperfectly utter their moth- 
er tongue; monarchs who lived in palaces, and beg- 
gars who pined in the hovel or on the dunghill.”’? No 
obstacles are in the way of its progress whose like it has 
not met and vanquished. .Who can read its history 
and doubt its ability to meet every form of opposition ? 
A writer in a foreign review, speaking of the Bible, 
says: “It has not been given to any other book of re- 
ligion thus to triumph over national prejudices, and lodge 
itself securely in the heart of great communities, vary- 
ing by every conceivable diversity of language, race, man- 
ners, and customs, and, indeed, agreeing in nothing but 
a veneration for itself. It adapts itself with facility to 
the revolutions of thought and feeling which shake to 
pieces all things else, and flexibly accommodates itself 
to the progress of society and the changes of civilization. 
Even conquests, the disorganization of old nations, the 
formation of new, do not effect the continuity of its em- 
pire. Itlays hold of the new as of the old, and trans- 
migrates with the spirit of humanity, attracting to 
itself by its own moral power, in all the communities 
it enters, a ceaseless intensity of effort for its propaga- 
tion, illustration, and defense.”” When Romish agents 
entered China, the ance tral tablet appeared to have 


14. THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


so great a hold on the people that they thought it neces- 
sary to permit its use in connection with a Christian 
profession; but with a purer testimony the supersti- 
tion has been overcome in many a heart, and not a few 
have turned from the worship of parents who are dead, 
to seek the blessing of that Father, whose “days are 
throughout all generations.”? At the commencement 
of modern missions in India, in addition to a religious 
faith which had held empire almost undisturbed for 
centuries, the institute of caste made the profession of a 
new religion a fearful sacrifice. To embrace Christi- 
anity was to forfeit all that a man possessed. It made 
him inconceivably infamous, and sundered the dearest 
relations of life. Nevertheless, the Gospel gained con- 
quests. A half century has “ unequivocally proved that 
there is nothing in the characteror, the condition, or 
the creed of any among its numerous tribes that presents 
an insurmountable obstacle to its advancement and 
success. Before its potent influence the Maulavi has 
abandoned his Koran, and the Pundit his Shastres ; 
the pilgrim his wandering, and the devotee his asceti- 
cism; the aboriginal his devil-worship, and the wizard 
his enchantment; the bather in the Ganges has sought 
the washing of a holier baptism, and the Brahmin, 
‘the thrice-born of heaven,’ has assumed the ‘badge of 
discipleship into a nobler and purer faith.’’”?* The “new 
religion” has gained the Burman, though Boodhism 
was commended to him by the veneration of cen- 
turies. Its holy hymns have penetrated the mountains 
and jungles where the nomad Karen makes his uncertain 
* The Rey. J. Makepeace, Missionary in Northern India. 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 15 


dwelling. In Asia its power has been demonstrated 
against religious systems which flourish where heathen- 
ism presents its greatest enlightenment. And had we 
space, we might show that in Africa its efficacious 
competency to overcome superstitions which exist in 
connection with the utmost ignorance has been abund- 
antly manifest. 

The history of the Gospel, from apostolic times to the 
present, is one of conflict and triumph. Mighty mon- 
archs have found the most specious temptations they 
could present to its professors, futile. It has maintain- 
ed its empire in the midst of tortures. It has had a 
noble army of martyrs, whom it made heroic in suffering 
and triumphant in death. And now while other sys- 
tems exhibit evidences of decay, it manifests the energy 
and vigor of primitive times; pursuing its course of 
conquest, rendering its adherents more confident, and 
inspiring them to go forward till, every knee bowing to 
Christ, the world shall be revolutionized to truth and 
righteousness. 

Those who now go forth to make war on the territory 
of darkness, have no miraculous powers by which to 
force conviction of the truth of Christianity ; neverthe- 
less, as Dr. Chalmers well remarked, “the self-evi- 
dencing power of the Truth, which is the laughing- 
stock of many adversaries, is more and more a thing of 
experimental verification.” Native superstitions may 
pre-oceupy the mind, but the faith of Jesus is ac- 
companied with a power which .makes it superior 
to all besides. It uproots idolatry, but can not be 
supplanted by it. It eclipses the Mohammedan crescent, 


16 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


but the false prophet’s faith never can shade the 
Cross. 

The Gospel does not win its way with the speed many 
conceive desirable, but there is a reason found in the 
analogy of all things. All remedial agencies are slow 
in accomplishing their ends. The cure of the accident 
of a moment often requires a long period. Shall we 
expect a nation’s sin and depravity to be remedied 
without time? In the cure of the disorders of the 
world, as well as in minor providences, 

‘God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonpers to perform.” 

The paucity of the forees engaged in this grand en- 
terprise does not receive enough consideration. Many, 
seeing notices of different missions, form the opinion 
that the various missionary boards of the world could 
present to view an exceeding great army of soldiers of 
Jesus Christ. Yet, what are they among so many ? 

It is generally thought that the claims of British In- 
dia have been met, as well as those of any idolatrous 
country. Its population the best statists consider not 
far from 160,000,000. In this vast territory, Christian 
men dwelling in India inform us that it is doubtful if 
there are two hundred European and American mis- 
sionaries. This allows only one missionary to every 
800,000 people. If the United States were supplied on 
this seale, we should have about thirty-one ministers 
for our whole confederacy. One evangelical minister 
to a State! Can we conceive of such a ‘‘ famine of the 
word of God?” Dr. Duff, after several years’ labor in 
India, truly says that, “when we think of the dispro- 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 17 


vortionateness of the evangelistic means employed in 
India, we are forcibly reminded of the design to illumi- 
nate the darkness of night by a few lamps.” Let 
China be another example. It has been said that 
were any one to sit down and count sixty in a minute 
for twelve hours every day, it would take him more 
than twenty-two years to enumerate the population of 
China. For the whole of its vast population, embracing 
more than one third of our race, we have about seventy- 
five Protestant missionaries. According to a recent 
missionary ehart, there are 2,944 ordained mission- 
aries in all the world, and these are to labor for the con- 
version of at least 700,000,000 of souls. There have 
been generals who could remember the names of all the 
men under their command. It would not require a 
memory so retentive to recollect the name of every 
European or American missionary now in the fields of 
heathenism. But what number of men could take 
a census of the nations destitute of the Gospel? 
Though so few have personally engaged in the war- 
fare, yet God by them has given deep and deadly hurt 
to the kingdom ef darkness. In many places refinement 
has displaced barbarism to a good degree; modesty re- 
strains licentiousness ; and man, instead of being degrad- 
ed, aspires to glory, honor, and immortality. Thousands 
of heathen have been converted to Christ, and many of 
these have died in hope. Onee the victims of squalid 
misery, loathsome degradation, and brutish ignorance, 
they are now before the Throne “ equal unto angels,” 
and companions to the good and holy of all ages and 
nations. Many are now the living evidences of the 


18 THE WORLD’S REVOLUOUTION. 


success of missionary efforts. Recent statistics give 
us 333,604 members in missionary churches. . The sac- 
rifice of infinite value offered for their redemption, and 
the triumphant joy which fills the courts of heaven 
over “ one sinner that repenteth,”’ make such conquests 
a reason of holiest exultation. At the same time other 
matters of a favorable character are to be noted. 
Wherever our missionaries labor, they engage in trans- 
lating the Scriptures, and these translations throw 
light on the pathway of millions. The schools they 
have instituted have given thousands of youth the es- 
sential cultivation of a Christian education. The En- 
glish language is spreading. Long-cherished prejudices 
are being overcome. Sanguinary usages are not so 
extensively observed. Idol temples are losing in ven- 
eration. Heathens are waking to the greatness of 
Christian governments. All these things are power- 
ful auxiliaries. 

Looking at the measure of means employed, we can 
not avoid the belief that missionary reports are records 
of triumph. The success has been great; and in this 
noblest of causes the smallest success is better, for it is 
more beneficial and more lasting than the grandest tri- 
umphs in any other. 

If with a band so feeble, such results have been ac- 
complished, who can estimate the triumphs the Gospel 
shall obtain when the demands of the enterpise shall 
be generally realized? Hitherto we have had here 
and there a laborer toiling in almost hopeless isolation ; 
then we may hope to have an agency more proportion- 
ate to the vastness of the field. This of itself would 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 19 


indicate that preparedness for extended conquests 
which God has never failed to regard. 

Protected by his relation to either an European or 
American government, there is scarcely a land where 
a missionary is not safe in his work. A few nations 
may be barred against the Gospel, but as well might 
we imagine that a fisherman’s seine will prevent the in- 
flux of the tide, as that the kings of the earth, who now 
“t take counsel together against the Lord and His Anoint- 
ed” should prevent its progress. 

We have no cause for uneasiness about the future, 
when we contemplate the past. In surveying the pop- 
ulation of the globe we find few real Christians. 
Those who belong to churches maintaining the purer 
forms of Christian, seem to be a “little flock.” They 
do not form a fourth of the so-called Christian world, 
and then we have the mournful consideration, that all 
are not Israel who are of Israel. We must make de- 
ductions still. But yet there remains a force who can 
do all things through the strength and presence of 
Christ. It has been shown, that if only five hundred 
thousand Christians (we have twice as many Baptists 
in the United States) were to address themselves to 
the conversion of one soul a year, and if from year to 
year they, and all converted by their instrumentality, 
were thus honored of God, that with a liberal calculation 
for the increase of population and decease of laborers, in 
thirteen years the revolution would be accomplished. 
“The Lord will hasten it in his time.’ 

It is no hopeless undertaking we contemplate. Mo- 
hammedanism had its origin with a false prophet. 


90 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


Jesuitism, which now exerts so great and terrible an in 
fluence, sprang from the strong mind and determinea 
will of one man. Dare we think that they who act 
under the guidance of the spirit of all wisdom, and who 
carry the weapons God has provided to pull down the 
strong-holds of wickedness and superstition, can fail of 
success? 

A true Christian might be satisfied to turn from all 
the favorable indications which present themselves, to 
grasp the certainties of Divine promise. We know that 
the Great Sacrifice is now ‘‘ set down on the right hand 
of God, from henceforth expecting till his enemies be 
made his footstool. We know that “ all power’ belongs 
to Him, ‘‘in heaven and on earth,’”’ and we can believe 
that working all things after the counsel of His own will, 
the period is not distant when ‘‘ His enemies shall be 
clothed with shame, and upon Himself shall His crown 
flourish.’ 

CHRISTIANS HAVE SOLEMN RESPONSIBILITIES CON- 
CERNING THIS Revoturion. The Gospel is the agency 
by which men are to be converted to Christ. It has 
words which are spirit and life. These must be brought 
to bear upon the minds of men. ‘Then, as leaven hid 
in meal assimilates it in character to itself, shall the 
souls of men be won to Christ. To bring the Gospel 
thus in contact with the mind, it must be made known. 
The duty of publishing it devolves upon those who them- 
selves have partaken of its benefits. The command of 
Jesus is, ‘Go ye into all the world and preacn.” This 
instrumentality by which the tongue manifests the truth 
to the conscience by the ear, though especially com- 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 21 


manded of Christ, is not necessarily the exclusive means 
of promulgating the truth. At the time Christ gave his 
commission to his followers, the voice and ear were the 
common and usual means of conveying and receiving 
information. Books existed only ina writtenform. In 
the revelations the Saviour gave to his disciples, he did 
not predict the discoveries of human art. They were not 
informed that printing would be invented. If so, the 
curious would have been prompted to many experiments 
without profit. Preaching was the most common and 
available means for instruction, and the Redeemer took 
it for the promulgation of his Gospel. Were he’now on 
earth, we have little reason to doubt that he would urge 
the use of the printing press to the utmost. Evangeli- 
cal missionaries, in obeying the command of Christ, look 
at its spirit, and translate and print the Scriptures, as 
wellas preach. When the Jesuit is driven from a coun- 
iry, all trace of his teachings is soon lost, for he never 
gives the people the word of God. But let every Prot- 
estant missionary be banished from the field to-morrow, 
the Bible, left behind, would still assert its supremacy 
and be ameans of conquest. Though years have elapsed 
since the servants of the Cross were expelled from Mad- 
agascar, the Bibles they left are continually making con- 
verts. Many have been brought to Christ by Seripture 
translations and tracts who have never seen our mis- 
sionaries. Such facts may well silence all who would 
confine the servants of the Cross to one mode of warfare. 

In whatever form the Gospel is made known, whether 
by preaching or printing, human agency is indispensable. 
The translator must go abroad. The preacher must be 
“sent.” 


92 THE WORLD’S REVOLOUTION. 


It may be asked, shall we not wait for indications that 
a heathen nation want the Gospel—some leadings in 
providence? The Bible would teach us by no means to 
do this. Men will not inquire for the Gospel. The 
wise men visited the infant Christ, to seek the birth-place 
of a king, not a Saviour. The Macedonian messenger 
was sent to the apostle from heaven, not from earth— 
Paul would have waited years without any such visit- 
ant coming from Macedonia itself. Occasionally we 
hear of the representatives of a heathen tribe visiting 
a mission station, asking for a “‘God man,” or one of 
“ Jesus Christ’s men ;” but it is because they have been 
electrified by the news of the results of the Gospel, near 
to them. The world being turned upside down around 
them, they have felt the rocking of the moral earthquake. 
Allured by the story of gold, heathens have come to our 
shores, but we have had none coming to ask for the un- 
searchable riches of the Christian’s faith. Let even a 
new Village rise in Christian America, without any pro- 
fessors of godliness, and the only means by which its 
population will have the Gospel, will be by its being 
taken to them. If sought by the people themselves, it 
is to be feared that the chances of improved speculation 
to be made by a Church, would have more to do with a 
minister’s introduction, than any desire for a deeper 
acquaintance with saving verities. 

Jesus waited for no indications from our world of a 
desire for salvation, before he came to ‘seek and to save 
the lost.’”? The whole creation groaned because of man’s 
fall and man’s misery, but we were yet ‘enemies’? when 
Christ died for our sins. It is only when we are made 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 23 


acquainted with the great fact of the Divine incarnation 
and death, that we become conscious of our ruin or seek 
deliverance. Had no purpose of kindness been shown 
by the Great Lawgiver to the rebellious, and no offer 
of forgiveness been made to the impenitent, Christendom 
would now be vicious, degraded, and hopeless as the lands 
of heathenism and its dwellers, equally unconcerned for 
deliverance from the terrible evils in which our nature 
is involved. 

According to the teaching of the Divine Word, it is 
evident that all Christians have important relations to 
the promulgation of the Gospel. It is, therefore, our duty 
to inquire what relation we individually hold to this 
work. 

Every Christian is to seek the subjugation of the na- 
tions to Christ by his prayers and efforts. To every 
disciple are the promises given, that asking he shall 
receive, and not ‘‘ weary in well doing”’ he shall reap. 

Prayer is an instrumentality which all can use. 
In this way any disciple, however poor, may be useful. 
Though secret in its operation, it is most potential in 
its effects. It is no mere flash of rhetoric, but solemn 
truth, that prayer ‘‘moves the arm that moves the 
world.’? Humble may be the part of many a disciple 
in the salvation of souls, to the view of man, yet as an 
intercessor with God, great may be his reward in heav- 
en. Far hid away in the secluded dell, or in the rug- 
ged mountain side, are the tiny springs to which the 
mighty river is indebted for existence, and thus re- 
tired from the world, a Christian may have his life hid 
with Christ in God; but his prayers may be the means 


24 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


of spiritual influences which shall make in the “ thirsty 
land, pools of water.” 

The purity of Messiah’s reign can only be secured by 
Divine Power. God’s blessing is indispensable. With- 
out his interposition no laborers will be raised up, and 
no proper degree of liberality found for their support. 
He alone truly knows the character of the work, and 
where men can be found with the qualifications it 
demands. And what can men, the most pious and skill- 
ful, effect any where without his aid? Nothing. Un- 
til God shall appear in power, merchandise and frivol- 
ity will have sway with the educated, and superstition 
and error will beguile the ignorant. The Jew will 
still be blinded. The heathen temple will lose no 
worshiper, its altar no offering. Votaries will throng 
the approaches to the tomb of the Impostor, rather than 
the narrow way that leadeth unto life. The Rom- 
ish altar will still keep men from Calvary’s Cross. 
Divine power only can avail to remove this depravity 
and delusion, and this we are to seek in earnest prayer. 
Christians are to pray for the Holy Spirit. In the view 
of the advent of this gracious Agent, our Lord deemed 
his own departure ‘“ expedient.” . It is his office to con- 
vert, enlighten, and regenerate souls. It is only by his 
energy that the Gospel can achieve a victory over the 
depravity of a single heart. How essential, then, are 
his influences, if the world is to be turned from its false 
religions to Christ—from vice to virtue—from sin to 
holiness ! 

Let every Christian ask himself whether he prays 
as much as he ought. Many, it is to be feared, never 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 25 


realize their calling as intercessors? How criminal 
are we inthis matter. Here is a means of power which 
the humblest disciple may make available, but it some- 
times seems altogether put out of sight. We look to 
outward machinery, and forget the engine which most 
honors God, and is most acceptable with him. In the 
“ fullness of time”? God purposes to ‘“ gather together in 
one all things in Christ.” When will that “fullness of 
time” dawn? Has a waiting, prayerful spirit, which 
shall honor Omnipotence, no relation to it? Let any 
Christian ask himself how much time he spends in a 
day, a week, or a year, praying for the world. Let him 
suppose his prayers an average of all the prayers of 
Christian professors in intensity of desire, and of time 
devoted to the object, and when can he believe God 
will consider the church prepared for the harmony of 
all things? When Christians are better intercessors 
with God, we may expect him to verify his oath, “I 
will fill the earth with my glory.” 

The time for God’s gracious appearing to Zion, is 
when his people manifest concern for her interests. 
“Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion, for the 
time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. For thy 
servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust 
thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the 
Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.” 

Every Christian has responsibilities concerning the 
promulgation of the Gospel extending farther than his 
prayers, for an obligation is laid on all the disciples of 
Jesus to ‘go into the world and preach the Gospel.” 
This commission was not given to the apostles exclusive- 


26 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


ly, but to the whole body of the disciples. And so when 
all the members of the church were scattered abroad “ er- 
cept the apostles” (Acts viii. 1) ‘‘ they went everywhere 
preaching the word.” It is not likely that their preach- 
ing partook of the set form to which we are accustomed 
now; for very brief proclamations, and very unartifi- 
cial gospel testimonies, are called preaching in the New 
Testament. The simple sentences which Jonah em- 
ployed in proclaiming judgment to the people of Ninevah, 
and by which John declared the coming of the Kingdom 
of God, are called “‘ preaching.’””? The preaching of Jesus 
consisted not in laborious.treatises. It was the simple 
and sincere utterance of one who felt an overpowering 
concern for the lost and miserable. 

Any believer can undoubtedly do much in compli- 
ance with this requirement. In his own family, in 
daily intercourse with men by speech, by example, he 
may preach, and powerfully preach of the Gospel of the 
peace of God. Nothing should occasion more profound 
sorrow, than that to so small an extent Christians in- 
fluence religiously the communities in which they dwell. 

But while Christians have a solemn duty to manifest 
the Gospel wherever their lot is cast, shining as “ lights 
in the world,” and ‘“ holding forth the Word of Life,”’ 
yet all have obligations to the whole world. However 
far their efforts may extend, or however long a period 
may be occupied in disseminating the truth, they have 
assurance of the presence and blessing of Christ. ‘‘ Lo 
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” 
Possessing a remedy for the sins and sorrows of hu- 
manity, it is their duty to extend its knowledge to every 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 2% 


region where man is found. Paul understood this re- 
sponsibility. This led him to an earnest, self-denying 
consecration of himself to Christ. His view of the 
value of the Gospel and of his duty, is made evident 
when he speaks of “ the glorious Gospel committed to 
my trust.” It was his trust to preach everywhere. 
So every Christian ransomed by the blood of the Cross, 
has it in trust for his fellow-men. He is not arrogant 
but right when he considers himself a trustee for the 
world. All who know the truth are bound to propa- 
gate it to the extent of their ability. 

Difficulties are in the way of a personal fulfillment of 
the duty in many instances. But there are means by 
which every one may contribute to its accomplishment. 
In revolutionary times, all who desired the independ- 
ence of their country, were equally under obligations 
to serve in the contest for freedom, but if all had been 
willing, only a portion had the ability, or could be 
sustained. It therefore devolved on some to stay at 
home and provide supples for their brethren in the 
field. It was only as they did this that victory could 
be achieved. So is it in the prosecution of the cause 
of God in the great battle-field of the world. Every 
one is equally bound to come up to the help of the Lord ; 
yet, as all do not possess the same talents, or means, each 
one may, by devoting himself to a particular province, 
promote the grand end. A charter for associated mis- 
sionary effort may be found as long ago as David’s time. 
“God be merciful unto us and bless us, that thy 
way may be known upon earth, thy saving health 
among all nations.” One Christian may have talents 


98 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


which mental culture would make available, but never- 
theless he is without appliances for education, and des- 
titute of the means to place himself where his powers 
would be most useful. Others have money, which 
“answereth all things” in procuring literary advant- 
ages for a missionary student, giving him an outfit, 
sending him to his station, and sustaining him there. 
One can translate the Bible, and others pay for mate- 
rials and printing. In this way all ean be honorably 
engaged in the great work. It becomes, therefore, the 
duty of each one to find his own place, and then obey 
the aposile’s requirement. ‘Having, then, gifts differ- 
ing, according to the grace that is given to us, whether 
prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion 
of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering ; 
or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, 
on exhortation; he that giveth, let him do it with sim- 
plicity.” Here we have different qualifications and 
abilities, and different duties. In fulfilling the work 
for which God gives us functions, or power, we are in 
the way of duty. ‘‘ All members have not the same 
office.” 

Some are called to yield themselves to the great en- 
terprise. In many instances the sacrifice which it de- 
mands may cause hesitation; but it is, however, evi- 
dent from the manifest tokens of Divine favor which 
have rested on our missions, that some one ought to 
enter the field. Ought not every one to give himself to 
prayerful consideration before he regards it settled that 
he is not called of God to go to the heathen? A call, 
which we have reason to believe, the Lord himself ex- 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 29 


tends, is more honorable, and compliance with it, will 
obtain richer rewards than can be gained by disobedi- 
ence to his will. A missionary, whose physicians de- 
clared return to his native land imperative, writes: 
‘¢ My missionary race was short. God made it so. But 
looking back this day, I would not for the universe 
have that brief space blotted from my existence.” 
Christian young men, whatever their present position, 
need to consider their responsibilities with respect io 
the world’s revolution. The knowledge and skill 
which they have acquired when contemplating only 
secular pursuits, God may call them to dedicate to his 
service. The intellect which has been trained 'to un- 
ravel subtleties at home, may be demanded to make 
dark things clear abroad. Some who have gained 
medical knowledge, may be anointed to connect with it 
the holier calling—to bind up the broken in heart. 
Some who now are expertly setting type for thoughts 
which are born to-day, and die to-morrow, may be 
called to use a printer’s stick, to transfer into what is 
now an unknown tongue, the “word of God which 
abideth forever.” By the consecration of employments 
now pursued with only the laudable object of an honest 
livelihood, God may intend young men to discharge 
their debt of sympathy to a world lying in wickedness. 
Some are called to yield their sons or daughters to 
the missionary cause. In this way God answers the 
prayers of his saints for more laborers. In a Christian 
household, intercessions for a perishing world will be 
continually presented ; can a parent reasonably com- 
plain when any of that circle whose devotions he has 


80 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


led, are found exclaiming, ‘‘ Here am I, send me.” If 
love to Christ, and concern for the lost and miserable, 
had proper empire in their minds, strong as are our so- 
cial affections, parents would esteem it no. small honor 
to have their children enduring the “‘ hardness’ of a 
missionary station. 

The trust of the great majority of Christians is espe- 
cially that of pecuniary liberality. It is a pleasing fea- 
ture of associated efforts, such as missionary boards 
present, that Christians, however limited their resources, 
may aid in relieving the misery of the heathen world. 
Before these plans of united effort were pursued, though 
such might contemplate the boundless waste, and weep 
bitter tears, they could do nothing, save by prayer. 
Now, the smallest offering may be of service. Just as 
cents form our dollar, so every fraction tells in the sum 
necessary to send out and sustain a missionary. We 

read lately of a dying man, in the midst of heathen rel- 
atives, finding all his hope in one single leaf of the 
psalms of David. Small was the sum required to 
print that leaf. Whose money paid for it, we know not. 
Peradventure, some very poor disciple, when he arrives 
in heaven, may ‘‘shine as the stars in the firmament,’ 
because of that heathen’s being turned to righteousness. 

The pecuniary aspect of our schemes of evangeliza- 
tion makes them repulsive to many. They think that 
money has too much prominence, and is regarded as 
too essential an element. Nevertheless, we discover 
that when apostles were turning the world upside down, 
it was not dispensed with. The character of the mis- 
sionary enterprise in this day, makes it more necessary 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 81° 


now, than in their time. We have no persecutions to 
scatter Christians abroad, to “ go everywhere preaching 
the word.” They perform less of labor themselves, and 
this supplies one of the many causes why we need lib- 
eral offerings. 

In our endeavors to evangelize the nations, money 
is required at every step. The missionary must have 
an outfit for his voyage and future labors. His passage 
must be secured to his destination. Bibles and tracts 
need to be printed, and these require type, presses, and 
paper. The servants of Christ need, like other men, 
food and raiment, and for all these things money is es- 
sential. 

Prophecy would lead us to suppose the consecration 
of wealth inseparable from a true reception of Christi- 
anity. ‘All they from Sheba shall come: they shall 
bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the 
praises of the Lord.” “Surely the isles shall wait for 
me, and the ships of Tarshish first to bring thy sons 
from far, their silver and their gold with them.” The 
New Testament abounds in exhortations and examples 
in this matter. Christians are required to be ‘‘rich in 
good works, ready to distribute, willing to communi- 
eate, and those who possess these graces are declared 
to be “laying up in store for themselves a good founda- 
tion against the time to come.’”’? Not only the “ pray- 
ers’? but also the “alms” of Cornelius came up for a 
memorial before God. Pecuniary beneficence is not a 
matter in which Christians are at liberty to act their 
own pleasure. Though our offerings are to be volun- 
tary, we have no reason to think neglect, or refusal to 


*32 THE WORLD 8 REVOLUTION. 


give, innocent. God demands the consecration of our 
possessions. His word gives us no sanction for hoarding 
or waste. Sufficient is allowed us for our well-being, 
for He who teaches us “‘ not to muzzle the mouth of the 
ox that treadeth out the corn,” giveth us all things 
liberally to enjoy. He requires that we only use for 
ourselves what is necessary. While he makes it a 
duty for every man to “ provide for his own,’ yet he 
teaches us that every believer, whatever he possesses 
of talents, or of possessions, is to regard himself as a 
steward. The most general stewardship is that of 
money. ‘ Itis required in stewards. that a man be found 
faithful.” A man who indulges in a lavish expend- 
iture, surrounding himself with all things rare and 
costly, and faring sumptuously every day, yet giving 
no aid to the cause of missions, can not be deemed 
“ faithful” to his trust. Every believer has a share in 
the obligation to extend the knowledge of the Divine 
purposes of merey, and when money will forward this 
end, none ean be guiltless of a fearful dereliction who 
withhold contributions. Our operations in the terri- 
tories of darkness are limited, not so much beeause we 
lack those who are willing to enter the field, as that 
believers fail to appropriate their wealth for the Lord 
whoboughtthem, Yet that wealth thus withheld is re- 
quired for the highest and noblest purposes. With the 
blessing of God, it would serve to overturn the temples 
of idols, enlighten those who are in the “region and 
shadow of death,” and bring in that period, which the 
Saviour is ‘‘expecting,” when “his enemies” shall be 
“made his footstool,” and the whole earth rejoice in his 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 33 


endless dominion. Does it comport with Christian obli- 
gation and hope, that any should chiefly devote their 
substance to worldly splendors, and entertain, as one of 
~ their chief desires, the ignoble ambition of dying rich ? 
It has been remarked that it is very suspicious for a 
steward to die wealthy. The statement has become 
trite, but its truth is not to bequestioned. Even Roman- 
ists have recognized and acted upon it. An old record 
states, that if upon the death of a monk, any money be 
found upon him, it should be buried with him in the 
dunghill. But it is added, “‘ not all the money: thirty 
pence will be sufficient as a sign of his damnation.” 
The superstition we reject, but we all must acknowl- 
edge that dishonor is the just desert of unfaithfulness. 
“The silver and the gold are the Lord’s.””? A faithful 
steward will not withhold them from His service. 

In bearing testimony to the piety of the Christians of 
Macedonia, the apostle informs us that their ‘ poverty 
abounded unto the riches of their liberality.” ‘‘ Be- 
yond their power they were willing themselves.’? Such 
liberality as this is rare; but we hope to see more of it 
in coming years. It is not too much to anticipate that 
Christians, ceasing to ask themselves, ‘‘ How much shall 
I give?” may inquire, ‘‘ How little shall I keep?’ 
“Self-denial,” it has been said, ‘‘may yet furnish a 
vast fund for the eause of God.’’? We have known of 
one who, from a sermon of Andrew Fuller’s—in which 
the doctrine was laid down that a man ought not only 
to give his superfluities, but cast his bread upon the 
waters—determined on a life of enlarged liberality. 
The adoption of this principle involved what many 





34 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


would think a great sacrifice. A residence which had 
peculiar attractions to his mind, he declined purchas- 
ing, because there his annual expenses would consume 
all his income, and ‘‘nothing,’’ said he, ‘would com- 
pensate me for the pleasure I have of living within it, 
that I may serve God with the surplus.” ‘Living 
within ’’ that income, was made the means of raising 
many faithful ministers, and building several beautiful 
houses for evangelical worship. If Christians gave heed 
to the calls of duty, we should not think of giving admi- 
ration to any man because of his liberality. A large 
heart and an open hand ought to be considered insepar- 
able from consistency of religious character. We live 
inan age of great display, and few think of the super- 
fluities which might be dispensed with, of a humble cot- 
tage instead of a costly mansion, of dress which might 
be plainer, of expensive entertainments—matters, not ot 
hospitality, but affairs of pride and emulation, which 
might be abandoned—or of excursions of pleasure which 
might be relinquished for Christ’s sake, and because 
“even Christ pleased not himself.” Christians can not 
always remain thus selfishly thoughtless. 

Even churches might make sacrifices for the cause of 
Christ. Oftentimes an expenditure is ventured on by 
religious societies, in no way essential for the Divine 
honor, and appeals for works of beneficence are met by 
considerations of a church debt. “Charity begins at 
home.” But, it may be asked, has a church a right to 
incur a debt which will paralyze its power to devise 
and execute liberal things for souls? Can they ex- 
pect ‘‘showers of blessings,” when the woes of those from 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 385 


whom the Gospel has been kept back, have entered 
into the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth? Churches, 
in building houses for God, do well to avoid all penurious. 
dealing with Him; but nevertheless when they offer 
the work of their hands, they ought, while saying, “Of 
thine own have we given thee,” to be satisfied that 
they have used the Lord’s money in a way most ac- 
ceptable to Him. 

The spectacle may perhaps yet be presented of a 
church who, from conscience to Christ, may be willing 
to build a house of worship for five thousand dollars, 
instead of twenty-five thousand, or for ten thou- 
sand dollars, instead of fifty thousand. In such a 
course, the same mind would be exhibited which David 
had, when, for the sake of starving men, he took the 
shew-bread from the temple, lawful only for the priests 
to eat, and was justified. ‘Though no house can be toa 
good for the worship of the Most High, yet to heed the 
wanis of the perishing, is more acceptable to Him than 
the most magnificent structure. He dwelleth not in 
temples made with hands, but delights to take up his 
abode in the humble and contrite heart of the most de- 
spised and ignorant child of earth. 

Christian men of business must recognize their re- 
sponsibilities to the cause of the world’s salvation. 
How can they live for Christ, but by carrying on busi- 
ness as to the Lord? Let them consecrate their busi- 
ness talent,.and it would give an impulse to diligence 
that nothing besides could supply. It would bring the 
success which diligence seldom fails to command. A 
man who should have the nobility of character, while 


386 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


gaining money, to rest satisfied with a moderate com- 
petence and yield his profits to the Lord, would by this 
personal disregard of wealth manifest a noble elevation 
of character. Heroism does not always require the 
field of action the world imagines. It may shine forth 
as impressively from a small store as from a martyr’s 
stake. We have heard of one doing business in a very 
humble way, accustomed to send an annual contri- 
bution to a missionary society,which year after year 
was increased twenty dollars. He sent this sum with- 
out his name, and only after a long time was he dis- 
covered, yet when we heard of his annual offering it 
had risen to nearly three hundred dollars. Here was 
one who believed that ‘‘it is more blessed to give than to 
receive.’ He consecrated his gains unto the Lord, while 
many borrow and trade with their Lord’s money, and 
grudgingly pay the smallest installment. 

Many would give more than they have done, but 
they scarcely know how to begin. They wait for con- 
gregations unitedly to enter into schemes of Christian 
beneficence, instead of considering their personal re- 
sponsibilities, and appropriating the Lord’s money they 
have in charge. A fixed period and stated proportion, 
according as God hath prospered, present the most 
soriptural and assuredly the most philosophical means 
for every Christian to discharge his pecuniary obliga- 
tions. The manner and time of his personal efforts for 
the good of souls are independent of rule. They are 
as he has ‘‘ opportunity.”’ His pecuniary contributions 
may in a great measure be reduced to system. In ac- 
eordance with the voluntariness which distinguishes 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 387 


Christianity, no law is given us in the New Testa- 
ment as to the proportion of our substance which is 
to be devoted to the Lord. Readiness to make saeri- 
fices for Christ is, however, frequently insisted on as the 
duty of his disciples. In deciding for himself what part 
of his income shall be yielded for purposes of beneficence, 
a believer needs to remember the grace of our Lord Je- 
sus Christ, his own indebtedness to redeeming mercy, 
the slightness of his tenure of all earthly good, and the 
value of souls for which Divine mercy has made “an 
unspeakable gift.”? If these motives are allowed their 
proper influence he will not manifest penuriousness in 
his allotment. 

The scale of benevolence resolved on demands a rigid 
adherence ; ‘‘ for better or for worse, for richer or for 
poorer.” Many in the early days of their profession 
gave a liberal proportion of their incomes to the cause 
of Christ, but they make no increase of contributions 
commensurate with their worldly prosperity. In many 
instances the young man who had always his dollar for 
every good object when not worth fifty dollars, as the 
professional man, merchant, or farmer, has not more 
than five dollars to give out of fifty thousand. Lib- 
erality ought to advance with acquisition, rather than 
be diminished. It is a fearful thing to “rise in the 
world,” and not to rise high enough to pay our obliga- 
tions as ‘‘ debtors to the world.” 

Some, we know, defer their liberality to a future pe- 
riod. They intend to “act handsomely” when they 
die. But do they in this way fulfill God’s requirement. 
David served his “own generation,” and this was ‘“ ac- 


88 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


cording to the will of God.” Can any one suppose he 
is doing the will of God, when he postpones doing good 
with the wealth entrusted to his care, to another gen- 
eration? Serving his own generation, is the best way 
to insure blessings to the next. God demands a “‘liv- 
ing sacrifice’’ for his service. We are told: 
“ Tis infamy to die and not be missed,” 

and very questionable is that honor which comes to a 
man only as the result of liberality when he has gone 
to a world whither he ean take nothing. There are 
instances in which Christian men may feel it imper- 
ative to delay the execution of some part of their benev- 
olent purposes till death, and it is well, when having 
devoted to the Lord a fair measure of interest in life, 
the munificence of their bequests supplies a closing 
proof of their thanksgiving for the Divine salvation, 
and the conformity of their ‘‘ wills” to the will of God. 

In this enterprise, God looks to all his people. “In 
Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female.’ 

Woman’s Influence ought to be felt. We find Napo- 
leon, when engaged in his struggles with other nations, 
in writing to one of his friends, calling on him to enlist 
his wife in his service by the disuse of articles of 
foreign manufacture and importation, and giving as 
his reason that the contest was for life and death, and 
he must have the aid of all by whom he was surround- 
ed. Christ likewise calls on woman to aid in his grand 
and glorious warfare, and happy is the Christian 
sister who has the satisfaction that ‘‘ she has done what 
she could.” 


Christianity elevates woman to a position of dig- 


THE WORLD'S REVOLUTION. 89 


nity, influence, and responsibility, never conceded to 
her under any other system of religious belief. Favor- 
ed, then, by its influence, and made oftentimes the ad- 
viser of her husband, how important is it that, in her 
own department of things, the wife should be ever 
ready to discourage rather than urge great expenditure. 
Many a Chistian sister ‘‘ unequally yoked” is arrayed 
in goodly apparel, and is called to preside over domes- 
tie concerns, placed on a seale demanding a large outlay, 
which we doubt not she would rather see, in good part, 
devoted to the cause of Christ. Such occupy stations 
which require peculiar prudence, that their “ good be 
not evil spoken of.” In other cases. the wife has no 
such hindranees to liberality. Both parties are profes- 
sors of godliness. Do they unitedly covenant to practice 
economy for the Lord’s sake? Or are they prevented 
from liberal offerings by maintaining an establishment 
which may cause their children to occupy a higher 
and more perilous position in the world than their pa- 
rents ? 

Well would it be if Christian mothers would bear in 
mind the eminent services they could render to the 
cause of Christ. The most suecessful and honored 
servants of the Cross were taught by a mother’s lips 
the excellency of those unsearchable riches they bear 
to a dying world. Within Christian homes, and by 
maternal wisdom and love, must the preparatory work 
be done, if we are to have faithful men raised up to 
meet the demands which will press upon the churches 
in coming years. The minds of children need to be 
impressed with the dignity and nobleness of Christian 


* 


40 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


beneficence. They ought to be taught the true honor ¢ 
of wealth, as not consisting in its acquirement, but in 
its use, and that while minds the most contracted are 
often competent to get, noble hearts are needed to give. 
Youthful minds must be taught how much greater 
honor there is in a life consecrated to the service of 
the Lord of the whole earth, than in a career devoted 
to lawsuits and merchandise. These principles moth- 
ers can most surely implant. Who shall tell us what 
would be the moral stature of another, generation of 
Christian men, if they would fulfill their trust ? 

Every Christian has duties to this cause; we know 
of no exceptions. It is vain to leave it to ministers. 
They can not accomplish the work. In the forcible 
language of Baptist Noel: ‘‘ Often has a road been con- 
structed when there was no engineer to guide, and a 
house has been built when there was no architect to 
direct, and a battle has been fought when there were 
few or no officers to lead on; but where has a road 
been constructed only by the director, or a house built 
only by the architect, or a battle won by the officers 
alone? Never! and never will Christ’s battle be won 
in this world till every Christian feels he is bound, by 
loyalty to his Master, to fight if he fights alone, and to 
go on in that good work which Christ, his Lord, has 
assigned him.” 

AMERICAN CHRISTIANS HAVE ESPECIAL RESPONSI- 
BILITIES FOR THE REVOLUTION OF THE worLpD. So 
far as wealth is concerned inthis enterprise, the Chris- 
tians of no land possess a fairer measure of means, and 
in no country are there such facilities for every de- 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. At 


nomination to educate those who are called to go forth 
to the battle for the Lord of Hosts. 

Many of the nations are peculiarly open to Missions 
from this country, and we can believe, therefore, that we 
are sent of God for their evangelization. India and 
China have been opened to the Gospel by the means 
of hostile armies from motives of cupidity and national 
aggrandizement. The opium war, by which China 
was rendered much more accessible to the servants of 
the Cross, is yet a great barrier to success in their work. 
A missionary of the Chureh of England, in bearing his 
testimony against this iniquitous traffic, says: ‘“ Would 
that those who profess to doubt or deny the magnitude of 
this obstacle to the progress of Christianity in China, 
could hear many a patriotic Chinese, with sarcastic smile, 
ask the missionaries whether they were connected with 
those individuals who brought the poison, of which so 
many of their countrymen eat and perish!” Happily 
missionaries from this land can disclaim the connec- 
tion, and be freed from the difficulties which embarrass 
others. Similarity of speech may sometimes cause a 
native population to keep aloof from an American 
missionary, but he has only to prove his relation to an- 
other people and the difficulty is overcome. 

We would not unduly magnify our calling, but it 
does appear that the very fact, that Americans are 
so clear of the blood of heathen nations, intimates that 
they are to be highly honored in their salvation. Ifto 
Solomon was given the work of building the temple, 
because David his father “had shed much blood,” we 
may believe that this country is to take an important 


42 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION, 


part in rearing the Lord’s house in lands which Britain 
has subdued. 

Wherever a nation aequires territory, its Christian 
people ought to feel a deep responsibility concerning 
the salvation of its inhabitants. It is well when these 
obligations are realized to the extent they are by trans- 
Atlantic Christians, but the certainty of greater ac- 
cessibility lays on others an equal obligation. 

American Christians have remarkable facilities for 
bringing the Gospel to bear upon the nations of the 
earth. Commercial relations of an extensive charac- 
ter give the opportunity of placing a missionary of the 
Cross in juxtaposition with any people to whom we 
could have access. In what port has not the Ameri- 
can flag been seen? Where is there a prospect of com- 
merce, that American enterprise does not enter, toshare 
the peril and the profit? The sails of American ship- 
ping whiten every sea. American vessels may be 
found in every haven in Europe, and along the coast of 
Africa. They enter every httle harbor of South 
America. They thread the channels of the countless 
islands in the Chinese seas, and continually bring the 
treasures of Asia to our feet, The tonnage of vessels 
employed in eommerce, would show the United States 
to be the first commereial nation of the whole world, 
“The States of North America,” it has been remarked, 
“are to be the commercial center of the globe.” 
“Shortly the carrying trade of the globe must be in 
our hands. Upon our shores are the gates through 
which must pass the world’s merchandise.” Is this 
“ carrying trade” given to this country for no higher 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 48 


purpose than ‘‘merchandise?”’ The very constitution 
of things which makes nations dependent on one an- 
other for the comforts and luxuries of life opens a vast 
means of good. Commerce affords a sure means of 
promulgating that faith by which men of all kindreds, 
tongues, and tribes are to be brought to heaven, Never 
was transit from one part of the globe to another so ex- 
peditious, and still steam is accomplishing new mar- 
vels. We believe that every thing, which assists and 
facilitates commerce, is to be subordinated to God’s pur- 
poses, by carrying unsearchable riches to distant lands, 

The facilities which we have, will lay us under fearful 
condemnation if not improved, If while an Apostle 
waited at Athens, his spirit was stirred within him 
because he saw the city wholly given to idolatry, how 
m ght he be impressed by a single day in a Christian 
city now. Were he to ask from whence we obtained 
not a few of the luxuries and comforts of life, we must 
reply, idolaters, Let him ask for the origin of many 
a beautiful fabrie worn by a Christian lady, he would 
hear that it was the handiwork of an Asiatic idolater. 
Let him share the hospitality of a Christian family, he 
would find most of their luxuries supplied by idolaters. 
The tea, so indispensable to many, he would find was 
gathered and packed by idolaters. His coffee would in 
most cases be traced to the idolater. Would it not be 
natural for one who knew nothing “ save Christ, and 
him crucified,” to ask, what had been done for these 
idolaters? What overwhelming mortification would 
such a question occasion many a Christian family ! 
Such an inquiry must yet be met, and only as woe 


44 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 
7 


have “‘done what we could”? can we expect to dispose 
of it satisfactorily. 

Buj theugh there are these facilities, by which we 
may carry the Gospel to the uttermost parts of the 
earth, there are those who will ask us to “look at 
home,” to go down into the caverns of misery which un- 
dermine our cities, or look into the garrets at the wretch- 
ed beings crowded there. We admit that the destitute 
and degraded have a claim on. our sympathies. The 
friends of foreign missions, we trust, are not unmindful 
of them. Many, however, when pleading the cause 
of the poor at home, seem to look upon the money 
spent on the heathen as squandered. Butit isno rash 
expenditure. Foreign missions benefit the needy at 
home by the employments which they give. Who 
make outfits for missionaries? American citizens. 
Manufactures wrought in our own factories are con- 
tinually being used. Vessels manned .by American 
hands convey the missionary to his destination, and the 
passage money—for ship-owners do not all yet appre- 
ciate the honor of giving “‘ free course’’ to the ‘‘ word 
of the Lord’’—goes with other little streams into the 
great ocean of. mercantile resources, which labor is 
constantly exhaling, Bibles and tracts for the heathen 
require presses, type, and paper, which generally only 
the civilized workman can furnish. Small is the sum 
spent in heathen lands. Generally, as in China, or 
India, it is expended with merchants who must pro- 
eure their stock from countries more civilized. In 
most cases, the presence of a missionary with the wants 
of civilized lite, is creating a demand. which, only our 


-% 
; 


THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 45 


artisans at home can meet. A British Consul in the 
South Seas, says: ‘There is now on these islands a 
great consumption of foreign articles.’”? These ‘‘ foreign 
articles’? must have makers. They favor the market 
of labor somewhere. They make the unemployed so 
many less. And there is no truer charity, than that 
which gives men remunerative employ. It elevates 
those who labor, while the claimants on small and in- 
adequate charities are reduced. All these things show 
that foreign missions befriend the poor. A man might 
support missons, and give a good reason, if he stated 
that patriotism was his inducement. 

But it may be asked whether spiritual destitution at 
home is not neglected by the prosecution of our enter- 
prises abroad? We believe not. Those churches 
which are most active for foreign missions, are fore- 
most in aiding home evangelization. Find a religious 
body opposed to this object, and within an easy dis- 
tance of any of their churches we will find villages and 
settlements into which they have never attempted to 
introduce the Gospel. There are a few religious 
bodies which have done nothing for the foreign cause ; 
and these will be found to have made the smallest in- 
crease of any in the last quarter of a century. On 
the contrary, the denominations which have been ‘in 
labors more abundant”’ for ‘‘ the world” have been tak- 
ing deeper root and extending on every side. ‘‘ There is 
that scattereth, and yet increaseth—there is that with- 
holdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty.” 

We admit that a thousand dollars expended on a 
foreign mission is no longer at our service for domes- 


46 THE WORLD’S REVOLUTION. 


tie benevolence. But the very persons whose contri- 
butions made that $1000, will be most likely to con- 
tribute a thousand for home. An advocate for any 
philanthropic object finds his best field with econgre- 
gations accustomed to contribute. In such a case the 
fountain of sympathy has been well opened. In the 
other case it will be found that there is all the peril 
and discomfort of digging for it, and in many instances 
after a long time wasted on a blue galt of selfishness, it 
will be abandoned in despair. They who give know 
the blessedness of giving, and “all the feelings of char- 
ity, a willingness to distribute, a readiness to commu- 
nicate, are enhanced by the exercise.’ * Facts and 
philosophy alike prove that foreign and home mis- 
sions are indebted, the one to the other. The prosperity 
of one is an earnest of good for the other. 

We must seek a world’s revolution. The degrada- 
tion, misery, and danger of the myriads of our race, 
the substantial efficacy which has been found in the 
Gospel to elevate and bless the most abject, conjoined 
with the success which God has given on past efforts, 
urge us to activity for ‘‘ all the world.” Never was 
there so grand an enterprise. Never does man appear 
so ennobled as in its prosecution. Great as was his 
glory in his primeval state, as a little lower than the 
angels, and glorious as is his destiny which makes him 
“equal” with them, he can not be more truly illus- 
trious than when permitted the most humble co-opera- 
tion with the Divine Spirit in the regeneration of all 
things. Even now Christ addresses to us the word of 

* Dr. Chalmers. 


THE WORLD § REVOLUTION. AT 


command, bidding us “go”? even as he “came” to 
“seek and to save the lost.” The Spirit hovering over 
the miserable and degraded, says, ‘‘Come.” God 
from his lofty throne speaks unto us, ‘‘Go forward.” 
Dare we slight these commands? Shall we be thus in- 
sensible of honor? Canhebe aminister of Christ who 
would think it beneath him to oceupy the humblest 
station in the prosecution of this great work? Canany 
Christian decline aiding this cause because be would 
amass a fortune which shall make his neighbors envi- 
ous and supply temptations to his children? Can 
there be a Christian mother who would not believe 
herself “‘ blessed among women” if her child was called 
to bear the name of Christ before the Gentiles? Can 
there be a young disciple who prefers prospects of 
worldly ease, to. toil for souls? 

Reader, “The night cometh!” Whatever your 
ministry for the world’s evangelization, ‘fulfill it.” 
Distant from the field, you may yet divide the spoil. 
Less conspicuous you are not-less needed. Consecrate 
yourself to God for this crusade on the territories of 
error, ignorance, and sin. Then when death shall 
call you to put off the harness, you shall be able to 
say, ‘I have fought a good fight,” and shall know 
that your influence has been exerted to make a nation 
pre-eminent in its privileges, pre-eminent in its con- 
quests for our God and His Christ. 


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Spivit af Missions 


Is THE 


Neel OT OE RLS 1 


Charleston: 
SOUTHERN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY. 
1853, 





THE 


Spirit of Missions is the Spirit of Christ. 


THE spirit of an individual, or body of men, is only 
another name for the habitual disposition, the practical 
principles, the blending of temper and judgment, which 
give harmony and stability to the character, and subor- 
dinates the conduct. But as this is an unseen agent, 
we can arrive at its characteristics only by experiment 
We must decide upon its nature and qualities, as we 
do concerning those of every other invisible cause, by 
observing the effects it produces. The conduct may 
indeed, in some instances, imperfectly represent the 
character, and lead to false estimates of the spirit. In 
cases, however, where a long series of actions, with 
the cireumstances and consequences attendant upon 


them is accurately known, and is known to have been 


+ THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


subservient, through its entire extent, to a definite de- 
sign, where no occasion for imposture is discoverable, 
and where nothing in the conduct and associations of 
an individual clashes with his avowed purposes, the 
test may be applied with the utmost confidence. For 
example, there is hardly a possibility of mistake when 
we ascribe the prolonged, arduous, and unrewarded 
labors of a professed patriotism to public spirit ; or un- 
ostentatious and habitual self-sacrifices for the well- 
being of others, to the philanthropic spirit ; or a contin- 
uous reference of every earthly interest to the will of 
God, to the spirit of piety. 

No difficulty interferes with the application of this 
process of induction to the actions of Christ. The 
Gospels, which have been recorded by inspired men, 
and which are themselves a transcript from the uner- 
ring mind of the Omniscient, display the general con- 
duct of his early life, and enumerate the various and 
minute particulars belonging to his public history. 
They accurately describe the times and the associations 
in whose midst he acted, and by whose means the 
definite purpose of those actions may be clearly seen. 
With unexampled frankness they relate the weaknesses 
and humiliations over which prejudiced friends might 
have wept in silence, while they also display the ma- 
jestic expressions of holiness and power which con- 





THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 5 


scious enemies would have feared to remember. They 
tell us of the manger and the judgment-hall, of Geth- 
semane and Calvary, of subjection and poverty, of 
shame, of anguish, of a detested death; but they also 
tell us of the Spirit’s descent upon his baptism in Jor- 
dan, and of the heavenly splendors on the heights of 
Tabor ; of the anthems of angels, and the hosannas of 
men; of the authority that stayed disease, and of the 
power that conquered death. And as an actual life, 
with all its variety of incident, so a decided character, 
signalized by one purpose, is revealed in the Gospels. 
Every act of the Redeemer bore a relation to a distinct 
and single end. Every enlargement of the field of his 
labors, every addition to the measure of his sufferings, 
was a contribution to a determinate object. His lan- 
guage was that of one whom some great thought pos- 
sesses in every company and amid every scene; and 
his conduct confirmed the testimony of his speech, un- 
vailing, as it did, more and more of the exalted under- 
taking to which his life was devoted, and unbosoming 
with more and more distinctness the sublime enthusi- 
asm by which his life was controlled. 

This design of Christ, a design of which his whole 
history is the expression and the proof, originated in a 
disposition and purpose to communicate to men the 
blessings which he alone could bestow. The Spirit of 


6 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 


Christ is therefore the spirit of philanthropy. With 
this sentiment all the circumstances of his earthly life, 
and all the authority of his mediatorial throne, must be 
connected. What object, but the salvation of men, 
could have led to his assumption of our nature? What, 
but the lamentations of a lost world, could have atiract- 
ed to its dwellings ‘‘God manifest in the flesh ?”’ What, 
but the tender sympathies of humanity, could have de- 
tained him so long among its polluted scenes and 
humble companionships? What, but “the joy set be- 
fore him’’—joy to such a nature the highest of all— 
the joy of souls redeemed, could have induced this ex- 
alted Being to submit to still deeper humiliations, ‘ to 
endure the cross and despise the shame?’ And who, 
but “a faithful and merciful High-priest,” has for 
eighteen hundred years held the scepter of universal 
empire with such glorious strength and patience, and 
still labors, and intercedes, and waits, until “the 
heathen shall be given to him for an inheritance, and 
the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession ?” 
The philanthropy of Christ must be estimated by the 
infinite nature to which it pertains, and by his relations 
to men, as their Creator and Sovereign. Its compass 
is boundless. It is adapted to secure the happiness of 
all. In the midst of an isolated Judaism, the Great 
Shepherd expressed his kindly interest in human kind 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. t 


committing to his disciples the care of ‘‘ other sheep, 
not of this fold.’ In an age when national selfishness 
was the highest style of patriotism, and when a haughty 
self-righteousness was confounded with piety, he cheer- 
fully bore the name of ‘‘the Friend of publicans and 
sinners.” He set apart a little company of converts, 
and after inspiring their souls with the enthusiasm of 
children of God and heirs of heaven, directed them to 
the world as the appointed field, in which all this en- 
ergy was to be expended. The apostles were trained 
by his personal teachings, they were stimulated by the 
manifested power and forgiving love of a risen Saviour, 
they were wrought to an unearthly courage by the won- 
derful gifts and presence of the Spirit, and they then 
went forth, constrained by the urgency of the Lord’s 
command: “Go, teach all nations.” And of this char- 
acter was the message they bore (1 John ii. 12): ‘‘ We 
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, tho 
Righteous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins ; and 
not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole 
world.” 

Such being evidently the Spirit of Christ, philan- 
thropy is with equal clearness the duty of all men. 
The example of Christ is authoritative. Not only does 
it claim the admiration, which certain Atheists have 


been constrained to render to it, even when they re- 


8 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 


garded it as a merely fanciful picture of excellence. 
This beautiful and pure model has been construeted by 
Divine hands, and perpetuated on earth by a series of 
providences, that men, through a faithful conformity 
to it, may subserve the will of their Creator. Besides, 
the directions to his people, by which the Spirit of 
Christ is evidenced, are also commands, emanating 
from a Sovereign authority. And the Spirit of Christ 
in prophecy harmonizes with the spirit of his life, and 
with his uttered will, in declaring that the philan- 
thropy which he ineuleates, will, however slow in its 
extension, at last pervade all the churches consecrated 
to his service. They shall ‘put on Jesus Christ.’ 
Won by his example, guided by his law, animated by 
the grand hope of bringing the prospective glories 
of his kingdom within the compass of their own day, 
they shall work with a zeal and a diligence, with a 
forethought and a prayerfulness, they have never 
known before. The world has yet to see, in accordance 
with the prophetic symbols, the majestic spectacle of a 
host of God, drawn together by the constraint of a Re- 
deemer’s love, panoplied in one resplendent Spirit, led 
by one conquering banner, the righteousness thereof 
going forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as 
a lamp that burneth—the strongholds of error yielding 
to their assaults, and the shrines and temples of super= ~ 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 9 


stition falling beneath their tramp—the captives and 
bondmen of the earth, its nobles and its kings, the thou- 
sand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, 
gathering with tears and rejoicings in its train; a host 
never pausing on its high career, until the circuit of 
the globe has been run, and every nation and city and 
hamlet has one altar and one law, and Christ reigns 
the universal Victor, the everlasting King. The 
Church is yet destined, by the appointment of its Au- 
thor, to bring the world under the power of a moral 
cultivation, and by the husbandry of labors and inter- 
cessions to pour new life along its marble veins, and 
cover its nakedness with an unwonted verdure: labors 
never to be given over, intercessions never to be silenc- 
ed, until the matured fruits of righteousness shall cover 
every land, and the yellow sheaves shall wave over 
every pleasant isle and every smiling continent, and 
the thanksgivings of the cultivators shall suddenly be 
returned by the anthems of the reapers, and Heaven 
shall ery, ‘ Harvest home !” 

It is our object to show that the missionary enterprise 
constitutes an important department of this philan- 
thropic work; that, in other words, THE SPIRIT OF 
Missions IS IDENTICAL WITH THE Spirit or Curist. 
This will appear, not only from their employing the 

same Divine agency, the Word of God, but specialiy 


10 THR SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


from the end which each proposes to itself, and to which 
each is really subservient: the increase of human 
knowledge, holiness, and happiness. 

We observe, then, in the first place, that the identity 
of the Spirit of Missions with the Spirit of Christ is 
discoverable 2m the contributions of each to the sum of 
human knowledge. 

It has frequently been said, that sincerity of con- 
viction is the only quality of religious belief about 
which men should be concerned, and that it is alto- 
gether a matter of minor importance whether they are 
the faithful servants of truth or of error. This obser- 
vation has been answered by Christian moralists in 
various ways. They have contended that ignorance is 
voluntary, and therefore criminal: inasmuch as the 
human mind has the ability to think and reason, to 
collect and weigh testimony, and to draw conclusions ; 
and as the merciful and wise Providence, who has 
thus constituted human nature, has provided in its be- 
half a system of Christian knowledge—a system at- 
tended by appropriate evidences, and claiming for itself 
the obedience of faith. They have pointed to the sad 
effects of error, to the necessary and actual influences 
exerted by unholy objects of worship upon their wor- 
shipers; and have drawn triumphant contrasts be- 


tween the state of Christian and that of Mohammedan - 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 11 


and Heathen nations. And they have argued the im- 
portance of religious truth, as it more concerns our 
present purpose to remark, from the high estimate put 
upon it by the great Teacher. Did it not prepare the 
way for his Divine Mission by the inspirations of 
prophecy? Was it not his Spirit, by which those 
great minds were caught up “to visions of enraptured 
thought,’’ and those musical hands were guided across 
the chords of the Hebrew lyre, and those eloquent lips 
brought such oracles, as a tribute and increase to the 
Book of God, and was it not the design of these earlier 
revelations to prepare the souls of men for holier words, 
such as floated, like a trumpet call, down the current 
of the Jordan, and summoned the tribes of Israel to 
their King; or such as fell, like a fertilizing shower, 
upon the wilderness of Judea, and softened the desert 
soil, and prepared it to be the garden of the Lord? 
The life of Christ and the cross of Christ are but the 
Gospel written in living characters. As such they 
must be recognized. Only “he that hears the Word of 
God and does it,” shall share in the salvation wrought 
out by our Immanuel “in tears, and agonies, and 
blood.” And the holy teachings which Jesus Christ 
lived and died to proclaim were not restricted to one 
age. He left them as a precious legacy to his disci- 


_ ples, commanding them to preach to the world the Gos- 


12. THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 


pel of the Resurrection, and thus diselose to its despair- 
ing millions the way from earth to heaven. 

If, then, the diffusion of Divine Truth was a promi- 
nent and essential feature in the enterprise of Christ, 
and also occupied the labors of his inspired servants, 
and if, on the other hand, a scheme of benevolence has 
been instituted in modern times, which chiefly contem- 
plates the preaching of the Gospel, who can doubt that 
the sacred structure, “‘ built upon the foundation of the 
Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being its 
corner-stone,”’ has the Spirit of Christ within it? And 
if, as the result of that plan, the heralds of salvation 
have gone forth—shrinking not from the self-denials 
involved in the relinquishment of their homes, and in 
dwelling for long years in heathen lands, and undis- 
mayed by the cruelties of heathen hearts—and have 
proclaimed in the waste places of the earth, “‘ Prepare 
ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert the 
highway for our God,’’? who ean doubt that the Spirit 
of Christ presided over that solemn assembly, whose 
minds conceived and whose liberalities effected the pos- 
sibility of that holy work; that it ever moves in those 
heroic hearts that breast the dangers of its prosecu- 
‘tion; that it now inspires the prayers, ascending at 
morning and at eventide from the multitudinous homes 
of Christendom: ‘Lord, bless our missionaries; bless 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 1d 


thy Word, as it is preached in Asia, and Africa, and 
the islands of the sea !” 

And this is indeed the picture which the missionary 
enterprise exhibits. It has called forth the prayers and 
efforts of the Christian world by carrying into heathen 
lands those blessed truths which, among us, fill every 
closet of devotion, every sanctuary, every Sabbath day, 
with the brightness and the power of a world to come. 
It has stirred heathen hearts innumerable with the 
eloquence of inspiration. It has transported to those 
regions the conflict going on in ours—the conflict 
against the deification of Nature and the idolatry of 
Self, and is there smiting the errors and delusions of 
the human mind with the sword of the Spirit, the Word 
of God. It has led men to despoil themselves of their 
sweet native speech—the treasury in which the intel- 
lectual glory of their country is garnered, the language 
of home, the medium through which they came to the 
knowledge of Jesus—that heathen tribes might hear, 
“each in its own tongue, the wonderful works of God.” 
It has constrained men to engage in the Herculean 
labors, ahd support the vast expenditures, attendant on 
the translation and wide diffusion of the Holy Oracles, 

that the grand scheme of divine Providence should be 
known by those for whose salvation it was intended ; 
that every heathen home should enshrine the prophetic 


14 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


record ‘of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that 
should follow ;”? and that the vail upon every heathen 
heart, which has so long hidden the spiritual and the 
future from the heirs of immortality, should be indig- 
nantly torn away. Thus the ground has been prepared 
upon which the monuments of missionary success might 
be erected; and upon this divinely appointed founda- 
tion churches have been built, schools established, the- 
ological seminaries endowed. The truth, once shut up 
in the hearts of the missionaries, has found new chan- 
nels of conveyance, and developed new sources of 
power. The sympathy and courage of numbers, united 
for a common object; the pliant, communicative mind 
of youth, receiving a new direction; the social exalta- 
tion and domestic influence of the female sex ; the arts, 
sciences, and refinements, that have fixed the centers 
of a new civilization amid barbarian wilds, and have 
decked with intellectual and moral beauty the volup- 
tuous culture of ancient pagan cities; such influences 
have resulted from the preaching of the Gospel, and 
have given new efficacy to it. The missionary enter- 
prise ineludes these agencies, and contemplates this 
result. It designs to produce a revolution of the earth, 
to bring the regions of night beneath the rays of the 
Sun of Righteousness. The missionary stations already 
reflect its luster, as the peaks of a mountainous country 


THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 15 


catch the first glories of the morning. The light in- 
creases. The slant rays leap from peak to peak, or 
more slowly travel down the sides of the mountains. 
The mists are falling, and farther and farther down 
“the shadows are fleeing away.’”’? The sheltered nooks 
of verdure appear. The icy summits melt with un- 
wonted heat ; and such pure streams descend into the 
valleys, as make glad the city of our God. Sun of 
Heaven! we rejoice, as thou along thy mighty way 
rejoicest! O ascend, till thou standest fixed in the 
meridian ; till the deepest hamlet shall have felt thy 
beams, and ‘the earth shall be filled with the knowl- 
edge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea !”” 

We observe, in the second place, that the identity of 
the Spirit of Missions with the Spirit. of Christ is dis- 
coverable in the contributions made by each to the sum 
of human holiness. 

The necessities of the heathen are not only to be esti- 
mated by the ignorance prevailing among them, and the 
false systems of belief they have embraced, but much 
more by the consequences of irreligion upon their moral 
natures. The religious creeds of Polytheism are sys- 
tems of gross impurity. The gods to whom idolatrous 
worship is rendered, are deified monsters. They pre- 
side over temples where prostitution is worship, and 


over lands where crime is religion. The homage they 


16 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


receive is the adoration of demons, by those who were 
made to glorify God; and nothing but a demon’s malice 
seems sufficient to have originated schemes so various, 
and yet so adapted to the brutalizing of human nature; 
and to have made such provisions of consecrated woods 
and caverns and magical rites, of temples and cloisters 
and priestly privileges, of national governments and 
social arts and domestic usages, for the shelter and en- 
couragement of such otherwise unimaginable sins. It 
is true, that here and there a professed moralist or a 
real philosopher may be found in pagan countries. But 
systems of morality, which are based upon selfishness— 
and such are the systems of pagan morality, whether 
displayed in a gloomy asceticism or a lifelong search 
after pleasure, have always been—present no barriers 
to popular practices which are induced by the same 
principle. And systems of philosophy, cautiously ex- 
pounded within the narrow walls of a school, carefully 
hidden from the knowledge of the multitude, and tim- 
idly deferential to the religion of the state—and such 
has been the historical character of pagan philoso- 
phers—can not train a race of active and bold reform- 
ers, or correct the polluted fountains of popular opinion. 
The idols of all nations would never have ceased to 
populate the banks of the Tiber, and the white-footed 
train of matrons would this day be descending a stream 


THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 17 


of corruption, into its current, to wash away their sins 
in its wintry wave (Juvenal vi. 406), had no purer 
moralist appeared than the Stoic Seneca, who lauded 
virtue in his stately periods, and disgraced it by his life. 
And the indiscriminate altars of Athens never would 
have fallen; but still the Greek would have fancied a 
council of adulterous and cruel gods enthroned on the 
gigantie height of Olympus, and would have continued 
to repair to the dark wilds of Cithaeron to celebrate 
with clashing cymbals and savage yells the orgies of 
incest, drunkenness, and murder, had he submitted to 
no higher motives than those conveyed in the hints of 
Socrates and the eloquence of Plato. 

Such was the state of the most refined heathen na- 
tions—such was the desperate corruption of the world, 
when Jesus Christ, the Benefactor of man, appeared 
among them. He came to dispossess the principalities 
of darkness of the high places of their dominion by 
settling and enforcing the principles of a pure morality. 
He came to exalt the nature they had degraded, by in- 
stilling into it the self-respect and virtue suited to its 
reason and its immortality. He came to establish on 
earth a holy kingdom, to whose citizenship all men 
might aspire. To this object his life was consecrated, 
He preached, and lived, and died, to declare to men the 
danger and guilt of sin, to achieve pardon for transgrese 


18 THE SPIRIT Of MISSIONS 18 


sors, and to display to a rebellious race, in the bright 
mirror of his own person, such revelations of the pater- 
nal tenderness and majesty of Heaven, “that every 
knee should bow, and every tongue confess that he is 
God ;”’ and that “we, with open face, beholding the 
glory of the Lord, should be changed inte the same 
image from glory to glory.” His ascension was the 
solemn triumph of this cause. It transported the first- 
fruits of man’s redemption to the holy harmonies of a 
better world. His mediatorial throne was established, 
as a fountain of spiritual influences in behalf of men; 
thence the Pentecostal issues streamed ; and in all sub- 
sequent ages the graces and deliverances of his people, 
and the conversion of sinners, have demonstrated the 
beneficent design and mighty power of its scepter. 
Thence he has continued to appeal to the piety of his 
disciples by fair visions and impassioned hopes—prom- 
ising to the soul devoutly conscious of its infirmities a 
way of deliverance in every temptation, and to the tried, 
grace for every day of need, and to the constant, a fel- 
lowship with, and a conformity to, Him, who is the 
center of Heaven and the brightness of God. 

Now what is the missionary enterprise, but a project 
for the extension of the same holy influences? Where 
have missionaries repaired, but to earth’s publicans 
and sinners in their darkest and foulest abodes? Mark 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 19 


the men to whom the ambassadors of the Cross now 
preach the Gospel: the enervate Greek and the licen- 
tious Turk; the Hindoo, soft and cruel as the tiger of 
his native plains, the crafty, unfeeling Chinese, the 
haughty Persian, the filthy Siberian, and the avaricious 
Jew; the bestial Bushmen and the bloody Ashantee ; 
the unlettered South Sea islanders, and the untamed 
Indian of our Western wilds. To all these they have 
spoken. Within the noisome, hopeless tomb, where 
“the world lieth in its wickedness,” they have pro- 
claimed “Jesus and the Resurrection.’”? Where they 
stand—each animated by the spirit of philanthropy, 
and uttering words which are the spells of Omnipo- 
tence—and prophesy to the slumbering millions around 
them, the scenes of Ezekiel’s vision begin. In the 
dark charnel, bone is coming to its bone, and the flesh 
covers them. The blood resumes its wonted play. 
The eyes, which darkness so long has sealed, behold 
the glory of the cross of Jesus descending softly through 
the midst of the valley of death. Here one Lazarus, 
_and there another, rises and comes to the Prophet’s 
side. Through the instrumentality of the Word, and 
the energy of the Spirit, a church of God is formed. 
Each disciple carries back to the spot in which he lay 
the same Divine summons which constrained him to 
arise. Where they go, the priestly hyenas, who fatten 


90 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 


upon human spoil, retire gnashing their teeth. The 
ghostly shadows, that seemed gods, vanish. The num- 
ber of living men increases, men with the real and 
honorable attributes of humanity about them, men of 
industry and virtue, men just and fearing God. 

Such is the unfinished history of modern missions, 
for ‘‘ the end is not yet.’’ But who can fail to trace the 
resemblance between this sketch and chapters in the 
history of the apostolic churches? Who ean doubt 
that they are displays of the same Divine Spirit, and 
pledges of the same auspicious future? O, we can not, 
we dare not, separate from Christianity the glorious 
results of our own missions, or even the examples that 
our dead on heathen shores have left as a rich bequest 
to the faithful of all coming times! The heroism of 
Mrs. Judson—the sufferings and labors unsurpassed, 
till the saintly spirit rose to its rewards, and the frail 
body was buried beneath the hopia tree—how power- 
fully has it acted upon, how greatly has it ennobled, 
the female piety of our native land! The exhausted 
Boardman, expiring like a soldier on the field of victory, 
“with the faithful Karens kneeling around him in 
prayer,’’ and that aged convert from idolatry, waving his 
withered, death-struck arm, and exclaiming, ‘“‘ The best 
of all is, God is with us!’’* that picture and that ery 


* Brief History of the Burman Mission, p. 32. 


THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 91 


have wrought like burning eloquence on the masculine 
devotion of our churches. And others have died, and 
others will die, before the sublime aspiration of God’s 
laborers is realized, and ‘‘the Lord shall cause righteous- 
ness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” 
But they die not as the fool dieth. To their graves the 
thoughts of the Christian world shall pilgrim for ages, 
as to holy shrines. Their ashes shall minister to the 
eause of God, like martyr blood. Their examples shall 
influence with the Spirit of Christ generations yet un- 
born. And there, as they lie on heathen shores, their 
whitening bones shall revive the courage of the future 
heralds of the Cross, as they pass beyond to more dis- 
tant conflicts, by marking the spots where idolatry 
once was, and where the Gospel of Jesus illustriously 
triumphed. 

And we observe, in the third place, that the identity 
of the Spirit of Missions with the Spirit of Christ is dis- 
coverable in the contributions of each to the sum of human 
happiness. 

To the question whether perfect happiness can be 
enjoyed on earth, but one answer can be given. And 
yet in view of the various and frequent miseries of 
men, it becomes Christian philanthropy to make all 
possible additions to the number of their enjoyments. 
And, in view of the debasing gratifications of men, 


92 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


Christian candor must admit, that the characier of their 
enjoyments may be greatly ennobled. Such provisions 
are especially needed by the inhabitants of heathen 
countries. Separated by false religions from the ‘‘ Su- 
preme Good,” possessed of no certain principles, by 
which the diverse relations of life may be harmonized, 
and made subservient to the well-being of all; the 
victims of social disorganizations and civil despotisms ; 
and bearing, each in his own breast, an irreconcilable 
discord, the heathen have vainly chased the phantom 
of happiness from the cradle to the grave. They suffer 
and create suffering. They pass away; and the groan- 
ing and travailing earth brings forth a new generation 
to the same heritage of woe. Throughout society a 
system of selfishness and wrong prevails. The priest. 
hood dignify religion by the cruel and unshared suffer- 
ings of its devotees. The mother, faithless to her first 
and last of duties, curses the infant daughter, whose 
fate is to be so like her own, or hushes its cries in an 
untimely grave. From day to day she moves, an im- 
pure, despised menial in the house of her husband and 
herchildren. The relentless hands of his own offspring 
finish the dark tragedy of an aged parent’s life. Poisons 
and assassinations adjust the disputes of social rivals. 
Fierce and cruel wars, and bloody retaliations balance 


the claims of contending kings. And yet a common 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 23 


misery has taught none to cherish the kindly charities 
of life, or to pour the balm of sympathy into these 
bleeding wounds. But in all the animal appetites are 
now gratified, now loathed; and the moral judgments 
are racked and torn by the changeful agonies of con- 
science. Amid the practices of religion, they see a 
savage gloom resting on the features of the gods,* 
while the impenetrable pall of death hangs over the 
future, and terminates the melancholy scene. 

But the Christian system has made suitable provision 
for human happiness, such happiness at least as may 
flourish in a state of probation. It lays the ground for 
human trust and gratitude, for meekness and charity, 
by one glorious revelation: God is Love! It brings 
men near to each other by representing them as the 
subjects of his blended authority and tenderness. All 
duties toward all relations are there summed up in one 
pregnant word ; and love to God and man are the sub- 
stance of its moral law. Its author is Love incarnate, 
and he has sought to reconcile all internal discords by 
bringing the whole nature of man under the power of 
sanctified affections, and all external schisms by the 
conviction, that the veins of every human creature 
swell with a brother’s blood. He has sought to break 
down every wall of division between men of every 


* Reinhard’s Plan of Christianity, p. 131 


24 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


nation, and to assemble all into one great family, bound 
together by the sense of a common origin, and by com- 
mon experiences and hopes; by faith in one Saviour, 
and by dutiful reverence for one Father in heaven. 

Let but these principles be adopted by the world, and 
what a change would take place in society! Every. 
where woman would be recognized as its ornament, 
and cling with a deathless love to him who should stana 
by her side beautiful in gentleness and strength. Home 
would echo with the unwonted glee of happy infancy. 
The expectant silence of later generations would wait 
upon the counsels of old age. A meek and thankful 
spirit, and a quiet. conscience, would flush the lives of 
all with the verdure of a perpetual spring. Affliction 
would be lightened by being divided, and sanctified by 
being overruled; and the sorrow and sighing of discon- 
tent would flee away from the haunts ofmen. The bow, 
and the sword, and the battle-axe should be broken like 
the visions of a troubled sleep, neither should men learn 
war any more; but the conquests of blood should give 
place to the triumphs of benevolence, and the only 
ensign should be the Root of Jesse, and to it should the 
nations seek, and its rest should be glorious. 

Now let the Spirit of Missions be tested by their re- 
sults upon human happiness. All competent witnesses 


concede that they have greatly checked the vices of 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 25 


theft and drunkenness, adultery and murder: But how 
much beyond this have they not done? They have 
been the honored means of converting many precious 
souls to God. They have moved many selfish hearts 
with filial submission to a heavenly Father, and to self- 
sacrificing benevolence in behalf of their fellow-men. 
They have transfigured many unhappy homes by the 
services of Christian courtesy and the habits of spiritual 
devotion. They have trained many an immortal in the 
pupilage of the sanctuary for the honor and glory and 
blessedness of the heavenly courts. They have origi- 
nated and exalted many societies, by impressing the 
sanctions of eternity upon the rights of the weak, and 
by founding among the barbarous the arts of industry 
and the institutions of justice. And they have brought 
forward in beautiful distinctness the great fact of 
human fraternity. The Christian hears of burning 
idols, of extinguished suttees, of guarded infancy, of 
converted manhood, and of apostolic zeal in heathen 
lands, and finds new glories in the Cross; and as a 
stronger interest in its advancement flows into his 
prayers and liberalities, his heart also throbs with an 
unwonted tenderness for the world. And the hardy sea- 
man melts with the sense of man’s brotherhood to man, 
as he sweeps around “‘ The Cape,” and hears the musie 
of thanksgivings mingling with its storms; or as he 


26 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


skims the smooth Pacific, and sees the spires of Christ- 
ian churches—the beacons of life and immortality— 
rising from every seagirt isle. Thus the walls of divis- 
ion are falling from between the families of the earth. 
The lnes of light and love are drawing the nations 
nearer together. O, can we doubt, that these are ‘the 
years of the right hand of the Most High?” Can we 
mistake the pledges of that universal jubilee which the 
earth shall raise, when one glorious and happy family 
populates all her coasts, and which heaven shall echo, 
when the Great Father looks with complacency over his 
universe, and again proclaims it ‘‘ good.” 

- The Spirit of Missions is the spirit of philanthropy. 
It is the spirit beneath whose fostering care bloom the 
knowledge, the holiness, the happiness of man. It is 
the unearthly Spirit of Jesus operating through human 
instrumentalities. 

And if this is indeed the character of the missionary 
enterprise, it is the business of the people of God to en- 
gage in its prosecution. They can not, without guilt, 
neglect a work which the Spirit of Christ has sancti- 
fied. They are under the most solemn obligations to 
promote it, for it is a work which, in every essential 
feature, is identical with the sublime undertaking 
which lured the Prince of Glory from his throne, and 
gave a lost world its Saviour. Their essential, their 


THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 27 


first duty is to follow Christ; to follow the guidance of 
his example, to submit to his ordinances, to foster his 
Spirit. And it would seem, that it was only in view 
of the temptations, self-denials, and dangers attending 
their fidelity to the apostolic commission, that the great 
promise, which follows it, was given to his disciples: 
“Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world!” Besides, the option has never been given to 
the Christian, whether he shall serve Christ or no. He 
is not his own. Body, spirit, and possessions are so 
many talents which have been committed to his charge. 
They shall be numbered with their increase at the 
judgment bar of Christ; and there the deepest deeps of 
hell shall be opened to receive the most polluted of 
criminals—the men who, under the cloak of religion, 
have multiplied their worldly gains by robbing God of 
his due. There ‘‘ wrath to the uttermost’ shall de- 
scend upon the idolaters whose knees have bent indif- 
ferently to the Creator or the creature; and the blas- 
phemers, whose affections have mingled the defilements 
of Mammon with the purities of Deity; and the im- 
pious, who, with greater madness than Ananias, would 
have bribed the justice of the Eternal with empty pro- 
fessions ; and the apostates, who, with less conscien- 
tiousness than Judas, died clasping to their bosoms the 


28 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I5S 


thirty pieces of silver with which they had betrayed 
their Lord. 

But the true servant of Christ will not need the force 
of fear to drive him to his duties. Him the love of 
Christ constraineth. Enough for him to know that, as 
a servant of his blessed Master, he also can advance 
the knowledge, the holiness, and the happiness of his 
race. His faith contemplates Christ upon the media- 
torial throne, waiting for the world’s redemption. He 
sees the intense interest with which the Mediator 
watches the spires of flame that here and there shoot 
up amid the darkness of heathenism ; or the tender, re- 
proachful look, as he turns toward his disciples, bring- 
ing so tardily the oil and wine of sacrifice to those sacred 
altars of worship. He feels that that reproach would 
make his heart melt and die within him. He thinks 
that sinners, who have never heard of Jesus, are pass- 
ing daily into eternity. He makes the cause of the 
Saviour his. He is ready to sacrifice time, fortune, 
station, life itself, to save them from ruin. He laments 
that the utmost he can do is so little, but he brings his 
counsels, his toils, his gifts, and knowing by experience 
how their efficacy may be increased, he steeps them in 
prayer, and submits them to the Lord. Freely he has 
received, freely he gives. 


And the Christian may go forth into this work with 


THE SPIRIT OF OHRIST. 29 


all the supports and encouragements to be derived from 
the faithfulness of God. He has promised that the 
cause of Christ shall be co-extensive with the bounds 
of the universe; and his promises are never made in 
vain. For many centuries, indeed, the predictions of 
the millennial day must have been confounded with the 
mysteries of the Scriptures. Generation after genera- 
tion of believers passed into the tomb, while yet the 
Gospel had made no sensible advances toward the evan- 
gelization of the world; and the prayer, “Thy king- 
dom come !” must have fallen coldly from many lips, 
and the high trust, due to God’s incorruptible Word 
must have been clouded in many hearts. But the 
pledge of God was not to renew the age of miracles, but 
to bless the instrumentality of the churches in the 
preaching of the Gospel; and it must be admitted, that 
up to the close of the last century, the churches had 
not begun to realize the claims of the world upon them. 
But no sooner were the divinely appointed connections 
established between the dying nations and the grace of 
God, than the Spirit of “the Faithful and True’ de- 
scended upon heathen shores. The promise, delivered 
1,800 years ago, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men 
unto me,” has been fulfilled again and again, wherever 
missionary hands have planted the ensign of the Cross. 
Dusky idolaters have been drawn together by its attrae- 


30 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS I8 


tions, and have knelt in worship around it. They have 
risen animated by a new spirit, “declaring their reso- 
lution to make known the Eternal God, and the dying 
love of Jesus on all the banks of their native streams.’’* 
And as missionary operations have been enlarged, the 
conquests of the Cross have extended. The heralds of 
salvation pass on their way, as Israel marched from 
Egypt; the light of prophecy brightens before them 
like a pillar of fire. The hard rocks melt beside them 
into fountains of living water. The idolatrous tribes 
submit to the power of the new religion they proclaim, 
“for Jehovah, their God, is with them, and the shout 
of a King is among them!’ The history of missions 
declares, that God is able and ready to answer the 
prayers of his people, to bless their labors, to transmute 
their liberalities into the sterling currency of heaven. 
Look at the rewards he has already bestowed in return 
for their desultory efforts and limited sacrifices. "What 
blessings will he not bestow when Christians shall 
see that ‘their hands are stained with pagan blood,’ 
and shall toil, and pray, and give, as men who must 
render account? Listen to the Oracles of Prophecy, as 
they declare that the world shall be converted, and con- 


verted through the agency of the Chureh.t Why 
* Burm. Hist., p. 32. 
+ Compare Daniel xii. 8, 4; Matt. v. 18, 14; xxiv. 14; xxviii, 19; 
Psalm Ixxyiii. 5; cii. 13-15; Isaiah lxii, 1-12, ete. 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 31 


should any Christian shrink from the support of this 
grand enterprise? Why should any advocate of this 
cause despair of the success which is pledged by the 
promises and providences of God? ‘‘ Hath he said, and 
shall he not do it? Hath he spoken, and shall he not 
make it good? The grass withereth and the flower 
fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand forever !’ 
Let his children carry this assurance to the mercy-seat. 
Let them bear the salvation, with which it is connect- 
ed, to a sin-stricken world. Let them vindicate the 
cause, in which they are engaged, by the argument of 
that fearful Name that dwells in the conquering taber- 
nacle of Israel. ‘‘O Zion, that bringest good tidings, 
get thee up into the high mountain! O Jerusalem, 
that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with 
strength. Lift it up; be not afraid! Say unto the 
cities of Judah, Behold your God !” 
But, alas, it is only here and there among the multi- 
tude of professed Christians that these duties are exem- 
plified. The advocates of missions throughout our land 
are many; but the actual friends of missions may be 
numbered by tens and units. For that is not friendship 
to the cause of God which is content, while Christianity 
maintains a few hundreds of missionaries to represent 
it amid the hundreds of millions in heathen lands, or 
which, out of its abundance, doles a ‘widow’s mite” to 


382 THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS IS 


supply the destitution of these perishing immortals. 
That is not conformity to the Spirit of Christ, that has 
never wept over the guilty miseries of mankind, that 
has never sacrificed to its utmost for their salvation. 
That is not the philanthropy of the New Testament, 
that has never felt a thrill of anguish at the thought 
that every passing moment strikes the knell of a hea- 
then soul—launches another creature of God, another 
undying spirit, upon the lake that burneth forever and 
ever. 

Reader, permit the writer of these pages to beseech 
you, for God’s sake, and for the sake of your undone 
fellow-creatures, to examine your relations to this im- 
portant subject. You may test for yourself the Sav- 
iour’s Spirit by the Saviour’s Life. You can approach 
him, as he stands on the Mount of Olives, and weeps 
over Jerusalem. You can hear him, as he glories in 
the Cross. You can see, and wonder, and adore, as 
exulting in the prospect of a world’s redemption he 
gives his heart to the soldier’s spear. Then turn from 
the Saviour to yourself. Ask your life if its acts have 
borne, even in their unworthiness, some traces of his 
philanthropy. If you have devoted your all to his 
service, if you are willing to go, in obedience to his com- 
mands, and for his dear sake, into the regions of heathen 
darkness, or if in the post in which you feel it your 


THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST. 33 


duty to remain, yours is yet a career of self-denial and 
sacrifice for the salvation of others, this is a fair copy 
of a spotless example. You have reason to thank God 
for his discriminating mercy, which has conformed you 
to the image of his Son. But if you have yet to learn 


‘the majesty and sweetness of self-sacrifice ; if the cause 


of God and man has never found that within you which 
it could melt into tears or kindle into enthusiasm, ‘“ ask 
the wisdom,” which he who now addresses you has 
been unable to impart—“‘ of him who giveth liberally 
and upbraideth not.’”’ Or fall upon your knees and im- 
plore the regenerating mercies of the Gospel; for if 
histories which can not be impeached declare that the 
Spirit of Missions is the Spirit of Christ; an authority 
not to be questioned adds, “If any man have not the 
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” 













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